We’ve been sleeping while Putin’s has been plotting, and recent events demand a show of strength. With the Russia involvement in the 2016 election, we can no longer retreat to our borders and bury our heads in the sand. As Voltaire said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Like it or not, we are the only superpower.
Putin’s taken the fight to the next level - cyber warfare. I will introduce legislation introducing a cyber-warfare branch of the military as suggested by Lieutenant Colonel Conti and Colonel Surdu:
The three major services are properly positioned to fight kinetic wars, and they value skills such as marksmanship, physical strength, the ability to leap out of airplanes and lead combat units under enemy fire.1
Conti and Surdu reasoned, "Adding an efficient and effective cyber branch alongside the Army, Navy and Air Force would provide our nation with the capability to defend our technological infrastructure and conduct offensive operations. Perhaps more important, the existence of this capability would serve as a strong deterrent for our nation's enemies."2
Our national security demands a state-of-the-art headquarters to combat this threat, staffed by our best. We have a known this threat must be eliminated and our dated defenses won’t do the job. Our national security is in jeopardy and we need a decisive plan and it doesn’t stop there. Every department budget must include a security plan to combat cyber meddling.
If we extract ourselves from the Middle East, we risk Russia filling the void in the region. Further, the United States would be at a disadvantage should we suffer another oil embargo. It’s clear that to Russia, the Cold War never ended, and Putin’s intention is to rebuild the Soviet empire, one country at a time.
1 Conti, Gregory; Surdu, John "Buck" (2009). "Army, Navy, Air Force, Cyber: Is it Time for a Cyberwarfare Branch of the Military" (PDF). Information Assurance Newsletter. Vol. 12 no. 1. pp. 14–18. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 June 2016.
2 Chabrow, Eric (25 March 2009). "New Cyber Warfare Branch Proposed: Time Ripe to Create Fourth Branch of Military". GovInfoSecurity (Information Security Media Group). Archived from the original on 22 December 2015.